tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post3660929543776736247..comments2024-02-15T04:42:41.606+00:00Comments on James' Empty Blog: "Making your vote count" and "wasted votes"James Annanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-73831054001570310672011-05-06T03:36:18.743+01:002011-05-06T03:36:18.743+01:00Arrow's (Voting System) TheoremArrow's (Voting System) TheoremDavid B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-55724336263723804352011-05-06T03:04:57.210+01:002011-05-06T03:04:57.210+01:00If you care about proportionality uber alles
Well...<i>If you care about proportionality uber alles</i><br /><br />Well, no, I didn't say that - you're shifting the goalposts AND raising a straw man...<br /><br />In any case, yes I would expect that if the largest party only got 35-40% of the votes, then the will set up a coalition to get above the 50% line. And yes, then the government can claim to represent a plurality of voters...William Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285679538054366979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-67586872464941122802011-05-06T02:46:48.276+01:002011-05-06T02:46:48.276+01:00AV has one big advantage of being an incremental c...AV has one big advantage of being an incremental change that is highly compatible with the present system. A fully proportional system sounds nice in some ways, but I don't see what the fundamental justification is for stopping at the level of representation in *parliament*. If you care about proportionality uber alles, surely the *Govt* should have a proportional representation of all parties...James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-17033734651950704232011-05-06T02:12:13.311+01:002011-05-06T02:12:13.311+01:00If you really do want all votes to count (equally)...If you really do want all votes to count (equally) then you can't go past proportional voting - all votes DO count the same in respect of proportion of representation in the parliament (except for very fringe parties that don't get over the threshold if there is one).<br /><br />For your standard FPP or AV/STV system however, votes for smaller parties are always discriminated against. For instance in the last UK election conservative votes were worth 3 times as much as Liberal votes in terms of seats won. It's even worse for smaller parties - the 285,000 green voters end up with a single MP whereas Conservative voters get an MP for every 35,000 of them.<br /><br />It's even worse for AV - in the last Australian election the greens got 11% of the votes and one MP. And that MP got less of the first preferences than the next candidate - the only reason he won was that most of the libreal voters put him above Labor for their preference vote...William Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285679538054366979noreply@blogger.com